Today, as we join the global community in commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the undersigned organizations call on the Obama Administration to develop a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice to fully comply with its human rights obligations to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination in the United States. We call on the Obama Administration to develop this Plan of Action in consultation with communities directly affected by structural racism across the country.

Despite a strong civil rights legacy, race disparities linked to institutionalized and structural forms of racism continue to exist in almost every sphere of life in the United States. For example:

National unemployment rates for Latinos are higher than the national average, and for African-Americans and Indigenous Peoples the rates are twice as high. These disparities are linked to employer discrimination and higher rates of incarceration, which often leads to being barred from employment.

In the 2009-2010 school year, 74 percent of African-American students and 80 percent of Latino students attended majority minority schools, where most of their classmates are nonwhite. An outcome of the deeply segregated and racially and economically isolated American education system is severe achievement gaps between students of color and white students.

Indigenous Peoples, African Americans, and Latinos are disproportionately incarcerated in the United States. Two-thirds of the two million prisoners in the United States are African-American or Latino. The disparities can be linked to improper policing practices like racial profiling. Drug policy and drug sentencing also contribute by disproportionately targeting African Americans and Latinos.

People of color and Indigenous Peoples are also more likely to live near hazardous waste facilities with nearly half of all people of color in the United States living within less than two miles of a hazardous waste facility.

Since 2011, a new wave of threats to voting rights has emerged. Restrictive voting laws like those requiring voters to present identification to vote have a disproportionate impact on people of color, who are less likely to have government-issued identification often due to cost.

Civil rights laws and agencies have not effectively addressed structural racism and the large disparities it produces in how groups experience institutions such as the justice system, schools, hospitals, and social services. In addition, recent court decisions have undermined some important aspects of civil rights legislation. A comprehensive plan is needed to address the historical legacy of racism in the U.S. and persistent contemporary forms of racial discrimination and race disparities.

Under the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the United States has a human rights obligation to address structural racism comprehensively. Despite having ratified this important treaty almost 20 years ago, human rights continues to be an underutilized tool for eliminating racial discrimination in the United States. We urge this Administration to meet its obligations and comply with the recommendations from several entities of the United Nations over the past five years to create a national strategy for advancing racial justice. Specifically, the 2008 ICERD recommendation that called for “implementation of national strategies or plans of actions aimed at the elimination of structural racism,”1 and the recommendation from the 2010 Universal Periodic Review to adopt “a comprehensive national work-plan to combat racial discrimination.”2

This year, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the many achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, we encourage this Administration to take bold leadership on this issue by adopting a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice. The time to act is now.

1 Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination: United States of America, CERD/C/USA/CO/6, February 2008.

2 Recommendation #92.111 made by the government of Qatar: “Adopt a comprehensive national work-plan to combat racial discrimination.” Canada, Australia, Brazil, and other countries have adopted national action plans to address racial discrimination.

Related Information

This is a resource to inform social justice groups from the grassroots to the national level, while conveying to government officials the need for a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice and how it might look.